With modern high-performance slicers, it is possible to cut off individual product slices from a product bar or product loaf, e.g. from a loaf of sausage or cheese, at a high cutting speed. Equally, cut-off product slices as well as product portions comprising a plurality of e.g. stacked or overlapping product slices can be transported away from the slicer relatively fast by means of conveying devices such as band conveyors or belt conveyors and can be supplied to a packaging machine, for example. It is frequently desirable in this process to distribute the products of an incoming product stream such that the outgoing product stream has a different grouping—also called a format set. For example, the incoming product stream can comprise individual products or product portions arranged behind one another, while the outgoing product stream has groups of two, three, four or more products or product portions—simply products in the following—arranged next to one another. A distributor conveyor movable transverse to the conveying direction can be arranged between an ingoing conveyor and an outgoing conveyor to effect such a product distribution. Such a system is disclosed in DE 101 43 506 A1. Apparatus for distributing conveyed product streams are furthermore also disclosed in DE 196 17 187 A1 and in DE 619 395.
In the food industry, the manufacturers/processors of food products are becoming increasingly more demanding and desire a plurality of different distribution variants. It is in particular desired to change from one distribution variant to another distribution variant with a relatively small effort. The flexibility of existing systems is frequently seen as too small in this respect. A further problem is the unwanted rotating of products or product portions when they are transported obliquely to the conveying direction.